photos…

Carrying on regardless…..

We will have been married eight years on Tuesday. Where has the time gone? Timmy and I are on our ‘almost-annual’ hunnymoon, taken every year, sometime around now, in honor of our wedding day.  We do this in lieu of gifts.

(Timmy has it made. Christmas is almost always electronics, my birthday is always quilt show cash, and our anniversary is a vacation, together. He has to think on the gift thing for Valentines Day)

We were sitting at lunch today, trying to recall all of our hunnymoons, as opposed to other vacation/weekends away/family travel.

We believe we are missing one.

2003 we traveled to Paducah, Kentucky for our first anniversary, and we brought one of my best friends along!! (Hey, it was a quilt show!!! He went to the Corvette plant and to Metropolis while we wandered about)  You know you have a keeper when he lets friends travel along!

2004 was Asheville, North Carolina, and the Biltmore House.

2005 (we believe) was a staycation and ‘>renovation of our kitchen. Not quite the same but certainly a welcome diversion.

2006, Chicago and a quilt show (without my fabric sidekick, alas)

2007 is the year we are not quite sure what we did…but we are sure it was fun. Possibly Chincoteague? Maybe it was Ocracoke? Nags Head?

2008 was a delayed hunnymoon out to San Diego to visit my brother, a cousin and an uncle.

2009 was a 12 day odyssey around the coastline of Florida.

2010 finds us Oceanside in Myrtle Beach South Carolina.

And to think, it all began with THIS journey!!!

 844634747_42702 011 1 5x7  844635276_42702 005 5x7844635424_42702 002 6x8844634662_42702 012 5x7844635191_42702 007 14x6844634948_42702 010 1 4x6   844635295_42702 004 5x7844635350_42702 0036x8   844634993_42702 008 5x7844634972_42702 009 5x7  844635047_42702 008 16x8 844635166_42702 007 4x6844635469_42702 001 16x8844635245_42702 006 copy4x6

Just a very few of the most wonderful images ever, taken by my friend, photographer Mike Falco. Mike gave us the most wonderful wedding gift, that of peace of mind. He was seriously in my head, and shot my wedding the way I would have….I continue to thank him to this day, and I thank all of you for having stood by us these past years…and I hope you will be with us for many more! (My vacation bucket list is DECADES long)

(Seriously, the 27 thing fling WILL be back, in this time slot, next week. No more pre-empting, I promise.)

I LOVE YOU, TIMMY!

P is for Puzzle…

The first of 6 bi-monthly quilt challenges is finished! Today other participants will also begin the great unveiling of their works of art.

The challenge from Three Creative Studios:

The word “PUZZLE”. No other requirement, other than not posting the completed quilt until at least today.

I decided that I would participate because I require deadlines to get things happening. And stretching is always good for the soul.

At approximately the same time, another quilt group (QuiltArt) I am a member of began discussing two topics, which eventually merged into another challenge. Topic one started in early January and was about your ‘word’ of the year. A lot of artists on the site had come up with the idea of a word that might pull their year into focus. It could have even been focus! Or create, or freedom, or finish. There were so many words, and so many interesting and unique reasons for them. Someone (inevitably) suggested that this word become a challenge quilt.

Someone mentioned that this was the 15th year of this online group. Eventually the powers that be decided a challenge for the Quinceanera of QuiltArt would be a 15” x 15” square quilt, hopefully utilizing some of the knowledge we had gained during our time there, and possibly, if we wanted to, incorporating our word of the year.

Well, I am all about killing two birds with one stone. So, here is my quilt, “P is for Puzzle,” which coincidentally was created 15” x 15”  so it can be for both challenges.

My idea was that I wanted to use my word of the year was a crossword puzzle. (Words, you know. And puzzles. See how easy?)

Anyway, devoted readers of this blog (all 3 of you) may recall my word this year is BALANCE.

Many pages of graph paper later I discovered it was almost impossible to have the word BALANCE become the center word in a 15 x 15 letter crossword. At least it was if I wanted the other words in the puzzle to have any connection to quilting, art, or me.  And finally, that seemed kind of OK. After all, my favorite quote of all time is– “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” (John Lennon, Beautiful Boy, 1980)

Life is a balancing act; no matter how much you strive to to lean one way or the other, in order to center yourself, some part of your life may become out of balance. But still you manage to carry all of the parts of you, and some parts tilt to one side for a while, and others get pushed off in directions you wouldn’t have chosen or expected.

I had originally wanted (visualized, really) striped fabrics, but I have put the restriction on myself that nothing may be purchased solely for this series of challenges. None of my fabrics spoke to me. They didn’t do what I envisioned.

After letting go of the stripe idea, two fabrics immediately found their way into my newly opened eyes. They incorporated my favorite color palette, they balance roughly across the color wheel as complementary, they offer both rest and movement.

p is for puzzle p is the puzzlebalance passion

Quick tips on the construction. After finding the fabrics, I cut two 8×8 squares of each and made a large 4 patch. Then I painted with a wash of Dynaflow, Pebeo and Golden acrylics to get a slightly more cohesive color.

I quilted a simple grid pattern, 15 one inch squares, I then dug through my ample scrapbooking, rubberstamping, art and jewelry supplies to find enough letters to spell out my words. Timmy drilled holes in Scrabble tiles for three of the words. They are my words for the two challenges and my word of the year.

I made a stencil from freezer paper for my large P (for Puzzle, Purple, and my name, Patricia!) and used Dynaflow and Golden Interference paint to color. I played around with some of the decorative stitching to create something of an Illuminated P. Random unused squares have been painted or had glitter applied.

I am happy with the way it turned out, and anxious to see what the next challenge will be!

In other quilting/photo news, I chose this photo for the latest challenge on Dgrin… the fabrics I used for the quilt above just happened to be sitting on the ironing board and I spotted the light….the challenge was SILHOUETTES…2010_FEB iRon-16 copybw

(Looking for some 27-thing encouragement?? Hey, guys, the Olympics are still on. Find something to do that you can take to the couch!!! Mending those clothes that you didn’t fling but needed buttons maybe??)

27-Things will be back next week, just in time for Spring Cleaning!!!!!!

Week TWO, February….

I missed Sunday’s blog. I admit it, I’m slacking. But, I did say you needed a shredder for this fling, and mine had died.

It took me till Saturday to get to Staples to buy one. (Yes, I work next door. I know.) But I was gearing up for the task, gathering my thoughts, and purchasing my new file system.

I also got mildly distracted by my photography, which doesn’t usually happen in the middle of the winter. But between our two weekend snow storms–(The first a home run, 8-9 inches, pretty; and the second that really was a non-issue after all)–HERE. I know that DC and northern Virginia and other places are digging out from 26-38 inches. Mine mostly melted yesterday. You can see the muddy, bare ground in the front yard again. Yay.

In any event, one of the photo places I hang out at virtually was running a challenge on ‘Doors and Windows.’ How could I NOT participate? Wednesday before work, I drove to Petersburg, and avoided the snowy ground and got some wonderful photos. I am so excited and energized by them; they make me happy.

2010-FEB Ptrbrg-3416x16 copyright

“ONCE WHEN I WAS YOUNG….” The rest of the shoot is posted for viewing (and purchase) at my Smugmug site.

But on Sunday, before the game, I plugged in the shredder and got to work.

shred

files 

Two 13-gallon trash bags later, I had a new and organized file system!! (Please note, this does not include half of the paper in the house. Timmy has not yet begun participation, so all the house files and such—his purview—have yet to be touched.) All the utilities I pay, all my personal stuff –up to and including my college transcripts and tax life pre-marriage were gathering dust here.

No longer.

The newest Fling is rather broadly scattered through the house. You may run into pockets of un-flung other stuff while there. FLING it. It will be ok.

This week is “Knick knacks/Home decor.”

This may end up being the hardest to do, simply because this is where emotion and history and memory and sentimental gentle winds blow through and force you to save, save, save.

The sad fact is, we can’t save everything. I watched one of the HGTV shows the other night. It was the Messiest House in America Contest. (Why would you ENTER that contest? Especially when they were SO resistant. And seriously? MESSY. Filthy, gross messy.) But I digress. Watching those shows isn’t a healthy thing to do, I think. It makes you not see your own issues because theirs are so overwhelming. But the lesson that is learned (sometimes) is that everything can’t be saved.

I am not of the opinion that you don’t need touchstones from your life. I don’t think a photo of your lovely china collection is the same as Christmas dinner eaten off the china; I don’t think taking a photo of a cherished teddy bear is the same as being able to let your grandchild hold him some day.

Your grandchildren won’t want your entire moth-eaten menagerie.  This is where saving versus hoarding versus collecting balances on a very fine pinpoint.

Think on it. Don’t fling with wild abandon here. Gift these things now, with lovely notes explaining their provenance. If you believe Sally will appreciated something someday, but her parents might look at it as trash, package it carefully, write Sally a note, and leave it for…later.

I am ending this now. More on these thoughts soon. Just don’t make rash decisions with this fling. (Mostly burned out candles? Easy fling. The candleholder? Maybe not.)